WASHINGTON −The Senate’s top Republican questioned on Sunday how easy it will be for President-elect Donald Trump to launch a “mass deportation” of at least 11 million immigrants living in the United States without authorization.
“Is it realistic to deport everybody? I mean, there’s a lot of people in this country who are here illegally,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
A mass deportation of 1 million people per year could cost $88 billion annually, according to the nonpartisan American Immigration Council. It would require an unprecedented ramp-up of law enforcement staffing, detention capacity, immigration courtrooms and flight accessibility.
Pew Research estimates there are 11 million immigrants in the United States without authorization. The vast majority don’t have a criminal conviction, and their individual situations can vary dramatically, from asylum-seekers who crossed the border to people who flew in on a tourist visa and overstayed.
Among them are some 1.3 million immigrants who have already been issued removal orders but remain in the country, either because of a lack of U.S. removal resources or because some countries refuse to take the immigrants back.
Trump has promised the “largest deportation program in American history.” Mass deportations were the centerpiece of his reelection campaign.
Thune said anyone who has committed a crime in the U.S. should be expelled along with the more than one million people already on the Biden administration’s deportation list. The president-elect has also previously said his administration will prioritize removing migrants with criminal records.
“So start with that, and then we’ll go from there and figure it out,” Thune said. “But I think the administration, when they take office, these are decisions obviously they’re going to have to make.”
Thune said he has the same objectives as Trump on various issues − though they may disagree at times on how to achieve them.
If they do disagree, Thune told CBS’ “Face the Nation” he’s willing to be straight with Trump if he thinks the president is wrong.
That includes, he said, helping Trump understand how the Senate operates, what can be accomplished, “and what’s realistic.”
Contributing: Lauren Villagran
